The GOP’s assault on unions and the working class comes to you this week from Ohio.

Cleveland ABC affiliate, News 5, reports:

“Labor unions are fighting back against a controversial bill in the Ohio Senate that would ban public university employees from striking. This isn’t the first fight, either.

Nearly 700,000 people in Ohio are part of unions or related associations, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor. With that, Ohioans are continuing to unionize faster than the national average.

If a corporation isn’t playing ball, a union’s greatest tool to getting a fair contract is a strike, or the threat of one.

‘Even having the possibility of a threat out there helps negotiations, helps people come to the table and work together to try to prevent it,’ said Melissa Cropper, president. of the Ohio Federation of Teachers.

But under Senate Bill 83, university employees would be banned from striking — making it a fireable offense . . .

Cropper and dozens of other unions are speaking out.

‘It just gives too much weight to management’s side to be able to do what they want to do or not come to the table with good proposals,’ she said.

Bill sponsor state Sen. Jerry Cirino (R-Kirtland) wants to put a stop to this.

‘To hold the students hostage to getting the instruction that they have paid for in advance of the semester just seems to me [as] not putting the students first,’ Cirino said.

Strikes paying families at the whim of educators and disadvantaged students just trying to learn, he added.

‘We have opportunities to negotiate on other bases without having to put the students’ right to get the instruction they paid for any way at risk,’ the Republican said.”

For the rest of the story, visit News 5 here.